DtVS 3: The Agricultural Secretary's Revenge
by Nomad1
Summary: You've read the sequel, now read the... um, trequel. Third in the 'Donna the Vampire Slayer' series.
1. Morning Rituals

** DtVS 3: The Agricultural Secretary's Revenge **

By Nomad  
May 2002

**Spoilers: ** We're heading completely AU after Buffy 5.22 "The Gift", and West Wing season two.

**Disclaimer: ** Joss Whedon owns Buffy. Aaron Sorkin owns The West Wing. I own a strange imagination and, apparently, a fan base. Weird.

**1: Morning Rituals**

These days, Donna's morning activities had become a ritual.

_Get up. Curse Josh for demanding presence of faithful assistant so early._

Shower. Dress. Think discouraging thoughts about lack of social life and/or money to buy nice clothes.

Eat breakfast and drink coffee. Think warm fuzzy thoughts about Josh bringing coffee.

Chase away warm fuzzies with reminder that Josh is cruel, evil, unreasonable boss demanding early arrival.

Perform last minute check that all clothing present and in right place.

Get into car. Attempt to start. Curse ancient car. Remind self to bug stingy boss for raise.

Think warm fuzzy thoughts about stingy boss riding to rescue when stuck walking home.

Chase away warm fuzzies with chilling vampire memories.

Battle traffic. Indulge Slayer-type fantasies about throwing pushy truck driver through windscreen.

Arrive at work. Enter bullpen. Wait for yell.

"_Don-na!_"

Ah, routine.

* * *

The first unexpected change in Donna's routine came at lunch break; or what would have been lunch break, had Josh considered either of those two words something that should be part of his assistant's vocabularly. 'Sandwich crammed in with minimal crumbs dropped on keyboard' might have been a more accurate term.

Donna came back from getting herself coffee - and conspiciously _not_ getting any for Josh - to find a familiar face by her desk.

"Willow!"

The red-haired girl smiled at her shyly. "Hi, Donna."

Donna smiled back, but then the expression faded. "Why are you here? Did something-?"

"Oh, no, nothing's wrong," Willow hastened to reassure her. "I just, um, I just kind of dropped in." She fumbled in her pocket, and produced what looked like a small, padded pouch. "I heard about your friend getting bit by a werewolf, and, um, I though maybe he could use a protective charm. It won't, uh, it won't stop him changing - 'cuz I don't know how to do that - but it'll mean that if he does, the wolf'll get really sleepy."

Donna remembered the last full moon, when Sam had first discovered he was a werewolf. Things had become complicated in an utterly unexpected way when Cathy and Ginger had found him standing close to Josh in a state of undress... and drawn conclusions. That had all been cleared up now, and Sam had managed to gain control of his werewolf side - even so, he'd be grateful for such a safety measure.

"Thanks, Willow," Donna said delightedly. "That's really thoughtful of you. Let's go see Sam." As they headed over to communications, a thought struck her. "Um, not to sound accusing, but... how did you get in?"

Willow grinned cutely. "Oh, I just kind of... wandered off the tour. Don't worry, they won't miss me," she hastened to add. "I did a spell."

"Oh." Donna marvelled at the casual way the Sunnydale girl referenced using any sort of magic. She wondered if Willow could do a spell to make her invisible to Josh when he was being unreasonable... but then, that would take away all the fun of hiding from him. And taunting him about his lack of coffee.

Cathy smiled at Donna as they arrived, and barely glanced at Willow. The halls were always full of nameless young girls.

"Sam in his office?"

"Yeah." She leaned in conspiratorially. "But watch out for Toby, huh?"

Donna frowned, trying to think of what might be bugging Toby. Then she remembered. "The Agricultural Secretary thing?"

Cathy nodded, and pulled a face. "Yeah. He's thrilled." Toby Ziegler didn't exactly have much patience for meetings he considered a waste of time.

Sam was delighted to see Willow, and pleased to receive his new protective charm. "Thank you. Thank you very much. I'll feel a lot safer knowing I have your magic to watch over me." Willow practically melted under the force of the Sam Seaborn grin.

Donna had to admit, it was a pretty dazzling smile... if not quite the equal of Josh showing off his dimples. Sam was a little too pretty for her tastes - although lately, a large number of the female staffers disagreed. On the final night of the full moon, Sam hadn't transformed into a wolf - but he _had_ changed. He had prowled around the corridors as if he was auditioning for a part as James Dean. As a finale to his big speech about rumours, friendship, and making a better world for gay people, he had given a rather surprised Josh a kiss on the lips.

Various staffers - Cathy, Bonnie, Ginger and Margaret as guilty as the rest - had been wandering around for days muttering "Oh my _God_," at regular intervals. Donna's favourite memory from that intense little scenario, however, was the wonderfully befuddled look on Josh's face immediately afterwards.

These affectionate musings as she half-listened to Sam and Willow chat were interrupted by the loud slam of Toby's office door. Toby exploded out into the bullpen, shouting continously at his largely impassive companion.

Willow's jaw had dropped. Sam saw, and smiled. "Oh, that's just Toby in one of his moods. Don't pay any attention."

"Not him," she gasped. "The other guy!"

"The other guy?" Sam frowned, utterly confused. "That's Roger Tribby, the Agricultural Secretary."

"Agricultural Secretary? No!" Willow exclaimed. "That's Mayor Wilkins!"


	2. The Hellmouth Committee Reconvenes

**2: The Hellmouth Committee Reconvenes**

An emergency meeting of the 'Hellmouth Committee' was called in Josh's office - the only place they could be reasonably assured of not being interrupted. The five of them who were in the know about vampires, Donna's ex-slaying activities and Sam's werewolf side were Donna, Josh, Sam, Toby and CJ. 

"So, you're telling me Roger Tribby... isn't Roger Tribby?" asked CJ disbelievingly. 

Willow nodded earnestly. "He's the Mayor of Sunnydale! Trust me." 

"Um... are you sure you're not mistaken?" suggested Sam gently. Donna reflected that those kinds of statements sounded so much less offensive when they weren't coming from Josh. 

Willow shook her head emphatically. "He did my graduation day speech. Also turned into a giant snake. Not something you'd forget." 

"A giant snake?" Josh shifted nervously in his seat. "How big is giant, exactly?" 

"About sixty feet long." Josh paled, and Donna nudged him. 

"Don't worry, Josh. I'll protect you." He shot her a look. 

"And it's the same guy?" asked CJ. 

"Yeah! Positive. Which is, I'll admit, a little bit weird - given that we kind of blew him up." 

"Blew him up?" asked Josh, eyebrows raised. 

"With dynamite," Willow nodded. "Giles set the explosives in the library - I mean, it was his library, after all. Although I suppose the rest of the school wasn't his. But the principal got eaten, so I guess it doesn't matter so much." She frowned. "We have kind of a bad track record with the principals getting eaten." 

"_Track record_?" yelped Josh. 

"Well, okay. Two. Out of two. For the years I was there, anyway." 

They contemplated that for a moment. Finally, Donna said "If you blew him up, how can he be Roger Tribby?" 

Willow frowned. "See, that's exactly what I want to know. I mean, he had this whole immortality deal going, but that wore off when he turned into the snake. Hence, extra-crispy Mayor-meat." 

"Euw," said CJ, succinctly. 

"Couldn't our guy be, like, his long lost twin brother or something?" suggested Sam. 

Willow shrugged. "Maybe. But Mayor Wilkins was over a hundred years old, so I'm thinking that won't help much." 

"Tribby?" Josh shook his head disbelievingly. "Now, _Lionel_ Tribbey, yes. You look at him, and you can see 'megolomanical-about-to-turn-into-a-snake-guy'. But Roger Tribby? He's so..." 

"Boring?" Donna supplied helpfully. He flashed her a grin. 

"Does he have this kind of weird hygiene fetish going?" Willow asked. 

"With the germs? Yeah," agreed Sam. He frowned. "But you can never be too careful with personal hygiene, you know," he added sternly. 

Toby, silent until now, rolled his eyes expressively. "All this is very interesting, I'm sure, but it's really not the point. The fact is, however he came to be here, this 'Mayor Wilkins' of yours has infiltrated the highest levels of government. I think we should probably be doing something about that, don't you?" 

"He's only Agricultural Secretary," CJ disputed. "It's not like he has his finger on the button or anything." 

Josh had suddenly gone very, very white. "He nearly did," he said in a sick voice. 

"What?" 

Donna knew this story, too. She always remembered matters of state better when she and Josh had been bantering over them. "When you were all at the Capitol Building. We had to pick somebody to stay behind... and Josh picked-" 

"-Roger Tribby, 'cuz all the other secretaries are more easily recogniseable on camera," Sam finished for her. 

"But if he was gonna do anything, he would have done it then, right?" asked CJ. 

Willow frowned. "When was this?" 

"'Bout a year and a half ago?" said Josh, with a shrug. He glanced across at Donna as if half expecting her to have the answer at her fingertips. She shrugged back at him. 

"A year and a half?" Willow looked shocked. "We only blew him up two years ago!" 

"Tribby joined us at the same time as everybody else," Sam pointed out. He frowned. "Although... I'm not sure any of us ever actually saw him when he first arrived." 

"And nobody queried this?" Toby demanded scathingly. "A high-ranking government official, and nobody thinks it at all odd that he's never been seen by any of the President's senior staff?" 

"He's agriculture, Toby," CJ pointed out. "Why would we _want_ to?" 

Josh frowned. "That's true. Which begs the question... why was he hanging around the West Wing today?" 

They all looked at Toby, who looked grave. "He's been petitioning people to get on the speaker's list at the ambassadorial reception next month." 

There was a moment's silence. 

"Anybody else thinking about sixty-foot snakes?" asked Josh nervously. 


	3. Sixty-Foot Snakes and Mental Draino

**3: Sixty-Foot Snakes and Mental Draino**

Willow had headed back home to Sunnydale, with promises to bring in the rest of the Scooby Gang and report back. Everybody else was forced to put things on the back-burner whilst they got on with the minor business of running the country. Josh, though, was somewhat distracted. 

"Josh, is there something I should know?" Donna asked finally, perching on his desk beside him. 

"Huh?" 

"Some deeply meaningful, life-changing snake-related incident in your past?" 

"Donna-" 

"I mean, perhaps, were you stolen from your crib by a boa constrictor? Did your favourite pet rabbit end up a bite-sized reptile snack? 'Cuz obviously, I'm not for one minute entertaining the idea that the great Joshua Lyman might have a _phobia_." 

"I am not afraid of snakes!" he retorted, looking wounded. 

"Of course not, of course not. 'Mildly disturbed by', perhaps? 'A tinsy bit wary of'?" 

"Donna, I am _not_ afraid of snakes! And I don't think being..." he struggled for a different term, but was forced to used it; "mildly disturbed by a sixty-foot snake is unreasonable!" 

"I'm not," she shrugged, swinging her legs. He raised a sceptical eyebrow. "Why should I be? I've fought vampires." 

"Yeah, but they're... vampires. And a giant snake is... a giant snake." 

"Clearly, that seven-sixty verbal was totally deserved." 

"Come on, Donna! Roger Tribby the Agricultural Secretary might turn into a sixty-foot snake at any moment, and you're not at all wigged out by that?" 

Donna might have admitted she was, had she not been distracted by Josh's vocabulary. "'Wigged out'?" she queried. 

"It's a word," he said defensively. 

"Two words, even." 

"I got it from Sam." 

"I should point out, Josh, that Sam thinks 'nervous hooleilia' is a word." 

"Oh, so you jump me when _I_ use two words, but you can do it?" 

"I'm not the one with the 'seven-sixty verbal, baby'." She might have prepared a better response than that, had she not been somewhat distracted by Josh using the term 'so you jump me'. 

_Bad thoughts, Donnatella. Gotta do something about the bad thoughts._

"That's not verbal, it's math," Josh pointed out petulantly. He reconsidered. "Wait, I meant-" 

Donna snickered. "You meant you can't count? Well, that explains those budget figures..." 

"Donnatella Moss, did you just snicker?" 

"No." 

"Did too!" 

"See, that's exactly the kind of reasoned argument that wins policy debates." 

"I win policy debates. I am _da man_ at policy debates!" 

"Yes. The only possible explanation being, no one got around to telling your opponents you can't count up to two." 

"Donna!" 

"Again with the masterful responses. This seems like a good time to negotiate for a raise." 

"Well, if we're all gonna get eaten by a giant snake in a month's time, it hardly seems necessary." 

"You don't want me to die happy?" 

"A raise would be enough to make you die happy?" 

_Present it to me with the smile with the dimples, and then we're cookin' with gas._

"See what working with you has done to me? I have lost all concept of self-worth. I have been drained of all my expectations. Joshua Lyman, psychological _Draino_." 

"I unblock your brain, thus allowing things to run through it faster?" 

"You foam, puff up, and blank my brain of all contents no matter how hard they try to cling on." 

"My assistant has a clogged brain. Well, this just explains everything." 

"Currently it's clogged with the fact that you have a morbid fear of snakes and can't count up to two." 

Josh grinned cutely at her, and recited in a sing-song voice "I think that one would be no fun; I cannot see my way to three; I don't like four, or even more; but two, I do - that's me and you." 

It was undoubtedly one of the most pathetic, childish, uninspired, silly attempts at poetry Donna had ever heard. 

It kept her smiling for at least eight hours. 


	4. Plans of Attack

**4: Plans of Attack**

"So... Roger Tribby, giant snake?" said Sam, disbelievingly. Josh shot him a pointed look. 

"Is it any weirder than the rest of the stuff we've had to deal with in the last month?" 

"Point," Sam conceded. A lot of strange things had been happening to him lately, not least of which had been his becoming a werewolf. Truth be told though, once Oz's advice had helped him get the hang of stopping himself transforming, it had felt rather cool. Under the full moon, it was as if all his geekishness had been stripped away, allowing him to utterly casually do things he would never normally dare. 

Like kiss Josh. Which was not one of the cool things, obviously. Which was not to say it was was an _un_-cool thing, per se. Rather, it was cool in the sense that he'd been utterly casual about it at the time. It had been perfectly innocent and he hadn't been obsessing over how Josh might take it in the slightest. 

Nope, no obsessing of that kind whatsoever. 

He realised the silence had been stretching out far longer than usual, and coughed hurriedly. "So, um, did they call back yet?" 

"From Sunnydale? Nuh-uh. Willow said something about consulting with this Wesley guy." 

"Another Watcher?" 

"Yeah. Apparently he was there when this Mayor Wilkins guy turned into a snake the first time." Josh looked faintly stricken as he pictured the scene. 

"You don't like snakes, do you?" Sam observed. Josh's forehead crinkled. 

"What? I'm not afraid of snakes!" 

"And yet strangely you're the first one to bring up the word 'afraid'." 

"Donna thinks I'm afraid of snakes," Josh confided. 

"Well-" 

"I'm not," Josh insisted. "Although, you know, sixty-foot snakes... kinda big." 

"As snakes go? Well, yeah." 

"And, um... sixty foot snakes appearing in the middle of ambassadorial receptions? As a rule, not good." 

"From an international relations standpoint? No, probably not." 

"So we should probably, um, try to prevent this." 

"It's an idea. Any clues on how?" 

"I was hoping you could fill in on that bit." 

"Well, could we stop Tribby from speaking?" 

Toby finally stopped fiddling with his pen and spoke up. "Not much chance of that," he scowled. "Tribby's spoken to the president, who unfortunately agrees with the points he wants to raise. We'd have to come up with a good explanation to get him off the list - and even if we did, he'd still be at the reception." 

Josh turned to Sam. "Who are we having this reception for, anyway? Anybody remember?" 

"A whole bunch of ambassadors, I think. International relations, or something. There was a memo..." 

"I remember Leo frothing at the mouth about Lord Marbury being there," Donna volunteered from the doorway. Josh clutched at his chest. 

"Jeez, Donna, sneak up on a guy, why don't you?" 

"I don't sneak; you're just completely unobservant. Which is always a good trait when you're supposed to be masterminding a secret plot." 

"What? We're not the masterminds. Tribby's the mastermind - we're trying to stop him. We are... the anti-masterminds." 

Toby snorted briefly. "You got that right." 

Josh frowned, and looked up at Donna. "What did you want, anyway?" 

"Willow called back. She's spoken to her contacts, and they've all agreed that they should send some people down to deal with this. Willow says she can't miss college, but she's sending Buffy, Giles, and this Wesley guy." 

"These are the guys who fixed it the first time, right?" Sam asked. 

Donna pulled a face. "Ish." 

Josh gave her a look. "Define 'ish'." 

"Yes, they stopped Mayor Wilkins. But 'fixed' is maybe not quite the right word..." 

"Why, what happened?" Josh asked, eyebrows raised. 

"Well, um, they assembled the entire graduating class into an army, armed them all with crossbows and other deadly weaponry, laced the school grounds with dynamite, and blew it all up in the middle of a huge battle with hundreds of casualities." 

There was a brief silence. 

"We may need to adapt that plan just a tad for the President's ambassadorial reception," Josh observed. 


	5. Incognito

**5: Incognito**

Sam was getting quite used to secretly meeting members of the Scooby Gang in the _Oasis_. A cute little coffee shop, it had been discovered by Josh and Donna. Sam wasn't exactly sure what those two were doing checking out coffee shops together, and had learned not to speculate on that in CJ's hearing; it tended to cause much grinding of teeth. 

It was the same waitress who had been there the last few times, and she smiled when she saw him. "Choco-mint-fudge-banana-whip-sundae?" she asked. 

Sam grinned guiltily. "Yeah. And four coffees." Nuts for dental hygiene was one thing, but there was something to be said for an enormous ice-cold sundae... 

As he returned to the others, he reflected aloud "Um... exactly how are these still secret meetings when the waitresses all recognise us?" 

"We're here incognito," said Josh. The effect of Sam's raised eyebrow was somewhat spoiled as the waitress dropped the huge sundae down in front of him. "For instance, who would believe that any fully grown man eating one of those was a respected government official?" 

Sam gestured with his spoon. "I would have a great many good points to make in my defence, but my sundae is melting." 

The whole 'Hellmouth Committee' had turned out. Donna, naturally, was involved as the ex-Slayer, and Josh wouldn't leave her side. Sam was mixed up in all this supernatural stuff twice as much now he was a werewolf, and Toby was the one who knew most about Tribby's plans for the ambassadorial reception. CJ had invited herself along for reasons she wouldn't disclose, but which Sam strongly suspected had something to do with a certain distinguished English Watcher. 

However, he didn't tease her about it. He had become wary of taunting anyone but Josh since the whole 'secret gay affair' scandal had made them both extremely easy targets. 

And besides, his sundae was melting. 

He had almost finished demolishing his icecream, and Josh and Donna were making some cute fuss over ordering more coffee that was driving CJ crazy, when the Sunnydale contingent arrived. 

"And I still say, if you'd let me drive-" The new voice was as English as Giles's, but slightly higher pitched and if anything, even _more_ refined. It belonged to a man of perhaps Sam's own age, immaculately dressed in a neatly-pressed dark suit and round glasses. But for the accent, he could have fit in easily amongst the over-eager junior politicos Sam dealt with every day. 

"If we'd let you drive, we'd still be stuck in LA traffic." Against his younger companion, Giles seemed far more laid-back. He managed to pull off wearing a grey comfy sweater without it making him look old, and he broke off from glaring over his glasses at the other man to give CJ a shy smile. 

"Hey, boys. Can we take a break from the bickering for half a second? We have company." They all twisted curiously in their seats to get another look at Buffy Summers. 

The last time Sam had seen Buffy, she had been pale and disoriented - not entirely surprising, since she'd just been raised from the dead. Now she was quite obviously very much in the prime of health. 

Sam made an effort to un-drop his jaw before CJ could glare at him. The corridors of the White House were not exactly deficient in beautiful young women, but they were all dressed in neatly professional business suits and - usually - mocking him unmercifully. Buffy wore combat trousers and a short top, with her blonde hair loose around her bare shoulders, and as she breezed in she lit the room up with a brilliant smile. Even Toby seemed unable to prevent his lips from quirking upwards slightly in response. 

"Hey, guys," she greeted them. "Um, I guess you know me, I'm Buffy, and you've met Giles. This is Wesley Wyndham-Price, he used to be a Watcher, and now he's a kind of... private investigator or something." She shrugged, and Wesley smiled wryly. 

"Well, thank you for that ringing endorsement, Buffy." He stepped forwards and politely shook hands around the circle. Donna at the end flashed him a lovely smile, and Sam smirked into his sundae at Josh's pained expression. 

_Irrational jealousy there, Joshua?_ Despite all the obvious troubles any 'thing' between Josh and Donna would bring, Sam was all in favour of it - and not just because it stopped people speculating whether he was _really_ sleeping with Josh. He felt more than a little jealous himself, sometimes, seeing the intimate little flashes of... something that passed between his two friends. 

"Right." Despite the fact that she was the youngest in the room by some margin, Buffy seemed to automatically take charge. "Mayor Wilkins in the White House; I'm thinking bad news with a capital bad. So what are we gonna do about it?" 


	6. This Looks Like a Case For Captain Obvio...

**6: This Looks Like a Case For Captain Obvious**

Toby frowned thoughtfully. "First, suppose you tell us more about this Ascension. I've been checking the Watcher diaries, but-" 

"Kane, Sharpsville, nothing else?" summarised Wesley with a nod. Giles rolled his eyes at him and started talking before he could continue. 

"The Mayor went through a number of stages in preparation for his Ascension the first time around. First, the dedication, which took place a hundred days before graduation day... he became, to all intents and purposes, completely invulnerable." 

Sam blinked. "Then how did you-" 

"We discovered that the invulnerability lasted only until he actually transformed into his demon form. The demon body, although, uh, somewhat... large... was in fact mortal, and could be killed by exposure to extreme heat and pressure." He frowned, and pushed back his glasses. 

"Or so we believed," Wesley added, somewhat unneccessarily. Buffy sighed. 

"Those pesky immortals, huh? Totally bug-some." 

Toby winced at this mangling of the English language, but seemed to decide to rise above it. "You defeated him once; can we do it again?" 

"I would think so," Giles said with a firm nod. "I don't know how Wilkins managed to survive the blast before, but it had to have been an emergency plan. The fact that he hasn't returned to Sunnydale, the place he specifically set up a hundred years ago for the purposes of his Ascension, suggests that he was considerably weakened. He would appear to be trying to recreate the ceremony, but I doubt it would be nearly as powerful as previously." 

"So in practical terms, what can we expect?" asked Josh, leaning forward in his seat. 

"Smaller snake?" shrugged Buffy. "Therefore less dynamite, which I'm thinking is a big 'yay'." 

"Stopping it before it gets that far is also good," suggested CJ dryly. 

Josh nodded. "'Cuz dynamite and the Secret Service? Not a good combination." 

"Yes," agreed Wesley. "We have to remember that we're not dealing with the simple Sunnydale authorities here." 

"Ah, Captain Obvious! Thank God you're here!" mocked Buffy gently, and Giles gave her a smile that was half-warning, half-amusement. Sam was beginning to feel a little sorry for the younger British man, even if he did seem overly prissy. He knew what it was like being cast as the overeager geeky one. 

"What else does Tribby... um, the Mayor... need to do for the ceremony?" asked Donna, giving Wesley another smile. Donna was always willing to be kind to people who were being mocked, provided they weren't Josh. Or rumoured to be having a gay affair with Josh. Sam winced slightly at the memory. 

"The Box of Gavroc," said Wesley quickly, and Giles nodded, getting back down to business. 

"Yes. Before the Ascension, the Mayor had to consume the demonic energy from the Box to give himself enough power. He'll have to go through the same process this time to rebuild his power base." 

"Uh, when you say 'consume'-" began Josh hesitantly. 

"It's full of about five billion spidery things about yea big," explained Buffy, making a shape the size of a dinner plate. "And it's not smart to leave the box open. They like to do the whole _Alien_ face-hugger scene." Josh looked like he could have done without that information, and Donna shuddered. 

"Spiders? Yech," said CJ, pulling a face. 

"If we stole the box from him, he'd have to abort the Ascension?" asked Toby. 

Giles nodded. "It can be destroyed, if the correct rituals are used. We intended to do so last time, but... circumstances intervened." 

Wesley looked irked, but said nothing. There had obviously been some sort of disagreement over this last time. 

"So that's a plan?" said Josh, half-disbelieving. "Get the Box, stop the Ascension?" 

"Yeah." Buffy pulled a face. "In theory. As to whether it's gonna _stay_ that simple..." 

"This looks like a case for Captain Obvious," observed Wesley. 


	7. Wolf Burglars

**7: Wolf Burglars **

"I can't believe we're doing this." 

"I can't believe we're actually this stupid." 

"Strangely, I have no trouble believing either." Donna rolled her eyes. "Now, are you two going to help me with this, or do I need to tie you up to a streetlight so you don't get in any trouble while I'm inside?" 

Sam shifted his feet uncomfortably. "I feel like a cat burglar." 

"Wolf burglar," said Josh. 

"Quiet, Joshua." Donna moved away from the two men to inspect the building. They had decided that for this particular mission, it was best that the Sunnydale team steered clear. If things went wrong, the three of them could bluff their way out of it more easily than two Englishmen and a California teenager. 

"I just know we're gonna get caught," worried Sam. 

"It's the Department of Agriculture, Sam, not the Oval Office," Josh reminded him. "We're not exactly up against the might of the Secret Service." 

"There'll be security." 

"We'll just tell them we're on top secret government business." 

"Breaking into buildings in the middle of the night?" 

"Our government favours a hands-on approach." He moved over to stand beside Donna, his breath as he spoke close enough to warm her cheeks. "See anything?" 

"Many things. Including that window." 

Josh followed her gaze and blinked. "Um... a little high, maybe? 

"Scared?" 

"No, just unathletic." 

Donna sniggered. "Baby. I'll go up myself, and let you old men in through the door." 

Josh pulled a face, but simply said "Want me to give you a leg-up?" 

"I'd rather have Sam do it. I trust _him_ not to drop me." 

Josh looked wounded. "You think I'd drop you?" 

"Your phone rings, you'd drop me like a shot. And then probably expect me to answer it for you." 

Sam stared at him. "You brought your cellphone?" 

"I turned the ringer off!" Josh said defensively. "Hey, I'm the Deputy Chief of Staff! Leo could be calling to tell me it's the end of the world." 

"I thought that was what we were working on already?" 

Donna snorted. "Yeah, well if we left it to you two the world'd be in a whole heap of trouble. Guys?" They both moved forward to give her a hand up. 

The window was locked, or perhaps just jammed shut. Donna fiddled with it for a moment, then gave in and just slammed a hand against the top. It shot open so fast it nearly knocked her down. 

_Slayer powers gone, my ass._

She wriggled through the window as elegantly as possible, trying not to think about the view she was presenting to the two men below. _Screw it. I'm a woman in the prime of my... womanhood. Let 'em stare._

She squirmed around to look down at Josh, whose forehead was adorably wrinkled with concern. "Be careful!" he called up. Donna smiled down at him. 

"Okay, mom." She dropped the ground inside the building. 

Donna found herself in a dusty room full of file cabinets. _Home away from home._ She made her way around to the door, and quickly unbolted it. There wasn't even an alarm; you'd have to be fairly starved for entertainment to try stealing agricultural records. 

As Sam slipped inside, she was amused by the way he was ridiculously careful not to touch anything. "Fingerprints," he elaborated stuffily, at his companions' matching smirks. 

"Sam, is there some reason we don't know about why the DC police department would have your fingerprints on file?" Josh asked. 

"They might come checking for suspects." 

"In the White House?" 

"Point," Sam conceded. But he kept the sleeves of his jacket tugged down over his hands, reminding Donna of nothing so much as an overgrown six-year-old. 

Stifling a giggle, she closed the door behind them and took a look around. It was a depressing sight. This looked more like a warehouse than part of an office, row after row of bulging file cabinets. "Files," she said dryly. Annoyingly, neither of her companions chimed in with the words 'lots of files'. _Dammit, am I the only one here who's ever seen the X-Files?_ She would have expected Sam to be the kind to follow with geekish fanaticism. Maybe he was more into _Star Trek_. 

"How are we supposed to find anything in here?" whinged Josh. Donna rolled her eyes at him. 

"It may shock you, Joshua, to know that files do not magically appear when you call for them. There is a very secret, ancient process we assistants go through, known only by the mysterious name of 'looking'." 

"We're not looking for a file. We're looking for a box." 

"And Captain Obvious has a challenger for his post! Yes, Josh, we're looking for a box. It belongs to the Agricultural Secretary; so does this building. Hence, the looking." 

Josh sighed, and stuffed his hands into his pockets. "Gee, this is gonna be fun." 


	8. Spiders, Scents, and the Sherlock Holmes...

**8: Spiders, Scents, and the Sherlock Holmes Factor**

"Ow!" 

"Idiot!" 

Sam blocked out the sounds of Josh and Donna 'working together', and focused on the search. The smell of dust in the air was stifling; he had found that, lately. Scents and sounds were magnified, especially as the moon drew closer to full. He could tell where Donna had been before him by the lingering traces of her perfume, and Josh by a slightly less identifiable mix of aftershave and leather shoes. 

In the chaos of the White House, all the scents mingled together into a sometimes overpowering blend, but in this seldom-visited place it was easy to tell where one of his companions had recently been. That gave him a - more than slightly disturbing - idea. 

"This box," he said to the others. "Tribby needs to visit it all the time, right?" 

"To eat the giant evil spiders, yeah," said Donna. 

"Ick," said Josh. 

"So to find it, we should go where he's been recently." 

"Which would be great if we had, you know, security camera footage," Josh pointed out. "Or footprints. How come no one leaves footprints these days?" 

"'Cuz this isn't a Sherlock Holmes movie?" suggested Donna. 

"Tribby hasn't been in this room anytime recently," Sam informed him. 

"Huh? How do you know?" demanded Josh. 

"'Cause I can't smell him." 

"Huh? Oh! Euw." 

"Yeah," agreed Sam. Donna, however, looked intrigued. 

"You can smell people?" 

Sam hugged himself self-consciously. "Sometimes. I- nobody's been in here for a while," he elaborated. 

"Well, that makes this a whole lot easier. Boy, we could use this at work; send you down to the archives to find where the interns have managed to lose things this week." She headed for the door. Josh hesitated. 

"I smell?" he asked tentatively. 

"You know... aftershave and stuff." 

"Oh. Um, okay." Josh's eyes widened a little. "Okay, but I'm never skipping my shower before work ever again." 

"Yeah." They followed Donna. 

"Smell anything?" she asked, as they entered an office area. 

"Lots of things," said Sam, unsure whether to be amused or dismayed at the depth of information available to his nose. He moved to one of the desks. "Coffee mostly. And this guy uses _way_ too much cologne." 

"'Kay, Sam? This is officially freaky." Donna elbowed Josh in the ribs. 

"Quiet, Joshua. Sam?" 

Sam sniffed the air a little self-consciously. Suddenly he got it; the scent of something dry and ancient. He almost gagged. "God, I think I smell-" 

Suddenly the doors before them exploded open. "Demons!" A trio of huge, shaggy-furred beasts bore down on them. They had heads almost like hyenas, only with large, yellowing tusks. They had to duck to pass through the doorway, being all somewhat over eight feet tall. 

Josh cursed and lurched a half-step forwards, obviously torn between retreating and wanting to defend Donna. His assistant, by contrast, went immediately on the attack. She reached towards the nearest file cabinet, and almost casually wrenched out one of the metal bars that made up its framework. Sam and Josh exchanged slightly wide-eyed looks. Clearly, the transfer of Slayer powers back to Buffy had not been as complete as all that. 

As Donna raised the metal bar like a sword and faced off against the creatures, Josh scrambled over to the shattered cabinet and pulled out more pieces of the broken frame. Sam caught the bar Josh tossed to hm and hefted it, wishing it was heavier. The hyena-demon immediately in front of him caught his eye, and smiled obscenely. 

Sam gingerly raised the bar, and tried not to tremble too obviously. 


	9. Hugs and Head Wounds

**9: Hugs and Head Wounds**

Everything exploded into motion. Donna seemed to be everywhere at once, moving with the grace of a dancer. Sam would have just stood and watched, entranced, if he hadn't been rather preoccupied with staying alive.

He thwacked at the hulking creature before him with the metal bar, but it hardly seemed to have any effect. The demon was so over-muscled that when he lashed out at it he felt like he was striking solid stone, and the stench of it was overpowering.

It knocked him down, and he hit his head on the side of another file cabinet. Everything went blurry for a moment, and suddenly the demon was no longer standing over him and he couldn't work out where it had gone. Somebody was pulling him backwards, and he went with the flow because it was easier than trying to resist.

The next thing he knew he was outside, and being hustled towards a car. For some reason he became utterly fascinated with the little patterns of light and shade cast by the orange-yellow streetlights.

Then he was being pushed into the back seat of a car, and being buckled in by hands that he didn't think were his own, although it was hard to tell because he wasn't totally sure all the pieces of his body were still under his command. He watched his lap for a moment and then registered that whoever had been belting him in had stopped doing so, and looked up. "Ow," he said vaguely, although he wasn't sure why.

His gaze locked with a pair of brown eyes that looked familiar. "J-" his mouth formed the J sound, but it was a moment before he could remember what came next. "-Osh?"

He felt pleased with himself for putting the name to the face, but then he recognised that the Josh-person was speaking, and by the time he'd tuned into the words they weren't directed at him anymore. "-think he hit his head."

Then another voice said something from the front, but he wasn't tuned into that one yet, and trying to figure out who it belonged to made his head hurt, so he stopped.

Josh was still looking at him, and he looked worried, so Sam smiled. His head was beginning to throb now, a dull ache that he couldn't quite pin down except it was coming from the back somewhere. He snuggled against Josh's shoulder and closed his eyes.

* * *

"Sam. Sam, wake up for me. C'mon?" Josh's voice and the gentle shaking brought back a flood of consciousness, and with it a rush of blood to the face.

"Josh!" he jerked backwards, blushing furiously as he realised how he'd been cuddling up to his best friend. Josh, however, didn't seem to notice, holding Sam's head between his hands to stare him worriedly in the eye.

"Sam, are you okay?"

"I, yeah, I think so..." He couldn't help wincing as he touched the back of his head tentatively. "Where are we?" he asked, as he realised the car had stopped moving.

"We're at the hospital." Josh leaned across to pop the release button on his seat belt for him.

"Hey..." he protested vaguely.

"Quiet." Josh rolled out of his side of the car, and then came round to help Sam out.

"I'm okay, really," insisted Sam, still touching his head. "I don't need-" He rather put a dent in his own argument by lurching quietly and grabbing hold of Josh.

"Whoa, easy there, Spanky," Josh said, laughing to cover his own worry and slipping an arm round Sam's shoulders.

"Hey, you shouldn't-" Sam wasn't sure if he was protesting the adoption of CJ's nickname or the arm around his shoulders, but he had an idea neither one would look good.

"Hey, I'm not the one who wanted to cuddle up on the back seat there, buddy." Sam flushed pink again as Josh made a show of brushing at his shirt. "I think you drooled on me."

"Come on, children." Donna locked the car and came around to help her boss support him. Caught up in indecision over not wanting to be seen to lean on a girl vs. the embarrassment of leaning on Josh, with a bit of recollection of Donna's super powers mixed in, Sam succeeded in nearly falling over once again. They both grabbed for him.

"Right, that's it. Come on, Sam." He wanted to protest again, but he didn't think they'd listen, and he had to close his eyes against the bright blur of the electric lights. He gave in, and leaned on them both as they helped him towards the hospital building.


	10. The Adventures of Jessica, Spanky and Po...

**10: The Adventures of Jessica, Spanky and Pokey**

"I really am fine, by the way. If you care. Which, obviously, you don't." The doctor ignored him and continued poking and prodding him and checking reactions. Finally he hunkered down to actually look Sam in the eye. 

"Can you tell me your name?" 

"Sam. Seaborn. With a Norman in the middle." Josh snickered, and Donna gave him a firm elbow to the ribs to shut him up. 

"And what day is it?" 

That one stumped him. "Um... Tuesday, possibly?" 

"There's no guarantee he'd know that normally," Josh put in. The days all tended to bleed together in the West Wing, especially when things were hectic enough to have them working all weekend. 

"Okay, then. Can you remember what you did today?" 

"Sure. Um, I went to work, I grabbed breakfast in the mess, President Bartlet started giving me a pop quiz on the origin of waffles-" 

The doctor was starting to look concerned, but fortunately Josh stepped in. "Bizarrely enough, that actually happened." The doctor gave him a look, and Donna flashed her White House ID at him. 

"Okay." The man started to note something on his clipboard, paused, and looked up. "Waffles?" 

"The president likes to encourage his staff to build up a store of general knowledge," Josh elaborated. 

"And some not-so-general." Sam squinted, the bright lights still bothering him a bit. "Can I go home now?" 

"Well, Mr. Seaborn, you don't appear to have done yourself any damage. However, I'd really prefer it if you stay overnight for observation, just in case." 

Sam just wanted to go home and crash on his couch. "I really don't think-" 

"Sure, he'll stay," Donna cut him off. 

He frowned at her. "When did you become my legal guardian?" 

Josh patted him on the shoulder. "Accept it, my son, you're going nowhere." 

"'My son'? Okay, I think you guys have just appointed yourselves my substitute parents, and that's... weird on entirely too many levels." Though he wouldn't have admitted it, he was feeling more than a little bit blurry. 

"Yeah." Dazed or not, Sam was sure the slightly guilty look Josh threw Donna's way was more than his imagination. "You know what? I'll go call the others." 

"Oh, Josh, c'mon-" Sam groaned. The last thing he wanted was _more_ people crowding around to fuss over him. 

"Sam. You, barely able to stand up. CJ, in full health and screaming mad about not being called. Who am I more afraid of?" 

"Coward," said Sam, but it was with a sigh of resignation. There was no escape. 

* * *

Toby was the first to arrive at the waiting room, his usual scowling self. "You didn't get the box?" he asked brusquely. 

"No." Donna didn't take offence, and answered the question she knew he _really_ wanted to ask. "But Sam's gonna be fine. The doctors just want to keep him in just in case." 

Toby muttered something into his beard about the deplorable clumsiness of his deputy, but Donna wasn't fooled. 

"Josh is in with him, if you wanna go ask about the demons that attacked us," she suggested. Of course, she could answer those questions herself just as easily, but Toby always needed a cover story before he could do anything that might be taken as caring. 

Toby mumbled something else, and stomped off. No doubt he would glare at Sam and tell him off for being an idiot, and nobody would be fooled on that end, either. 

CJ arrived soon after. "Hey, Donna." Donna saw her visibily relax as soon as she saw the casual way Donna was sitting out in the waiting room. "How's our Spanky doing?" 

"He's gonna be fine." She couldn't quite hold in a giggle. "Josh called him that earlier," she confided. "I guess it was a term of endearment." 

CJ pumped her fist triumphantly. "At last, a nickname adopted! Who am I, the name lady? I've been throwing those things out for ages waiting for one of them to take hold. It takes imagination, you know." She grinned wickely. "Incidentally, is Pokey here?" 

"He's in with Spanky and Jessica." They traded smirks. 


	11. Jelly Doughnuts and Plan B

**11: Jelly Doughnuts and Plan B**

Sam's hospital bed, to the annoyance of the doctors, became an impromptu meeting centre for the two different branches of the Hellmouth Committee. Sam felt vaguely sheepish to be in his position, but Giles shrugged it off with a resigned sigh.

"Getting knocked on the head, alas, would seem to be a continuing hazard in our line of work."

"Well, if you maybe actually _locked your door_ once in a while-" Giles silenced his Slayer with a well-honed look.

"Regardless, the Box of Gavroc has once again eluded us," noted Wesley, a trifle snippily. "It appears we're doomed to never follow the easy route."

"I could've told you that," sighed Buffy.

"So what do we do now?" asked CJ, rubbing her forehead tiredly.

"We go to plan B," said Giles.

"Okay, would plan B in any way involve bringing dynamite into an ambassadorial reception?" Josh wanted to know. "'Cuz-"

"Tribby has to be stopped from Ascending at the reception," Toby interrupted impatiently.

"Once it's begun, the Ascension can't be put off," Wesley added.

"So we just need to keep him away from the reception and he'll... go all snakey somewhere else?" Donna asked. Josh smirked, and she gave him a look.

Giles took his glasses off and absently polished them. "I believe that has, um, pretty much covered it."

"Can't we just get him off the guest list?" suggested Donna optimistically, but Josh was shaking his head.

"The president's specifically asked for him to speak."

"He's Agriculture," added Sam. "It's a big day for him."

"Nobody turns down a chance to speak directly to the president."

"Yeah. Even if he wants to talk about waffles," agreed Sam wryly.

"Mmm, waffles." Buffy bounced suddenly to her feet. "You guys want food?" she asked. "It's the end of the world, we usually have jelly doughnuts."

"Yes, that's probably a good idea." Giles straightened up. "We could all, no doubt, use a bit of a break."

"Yeah, I could use some coffee." He and Donna exchanged a private smile, and Sam saw CJ's jaw tighten.

"We'll be back in a minute, Sam," said Josh, and before he could even protest everybody had bailed out and left him.

"Hey, don't mind me," he said to the empty room. Despite himself, though, he was feeling suddenly very tired. Maybe he would just rest his eyes for a moment...

* * *

"Hey, Sam." He jolted awake and blinked the world back into focus.

"Leo!" He scrambled to sit up.

"Stay down, Sam." Leo rolled his eyes. "What happened?"

_Well, we were breaking and entering when these demons bust in on us, and..._ "Oh, I, uh, I hit my head. On a, on a cabinet." He tried to look sheepish, which really wasn't difficult.

"We need to get you one of those harness things they put three-year-olds in," Leo suggested with a wicked grin. "You're not safe to be out on your own."

"I just _tripped_, Leo!" he objected.

"Like you 'just' fell off that boat?"

"One time, Leo, that was _one time_." Leo just smirked.

"Whatever."

The sound of footsteps in the corridor outside came as a welcome relief. Until, that was, they came close enough to overhear what was being said. "And then, of course, there's the question of vampires, which are-" Giles spotted Leo "-a fascinating legend in their own right." Sam fought the urge to applaud the smooth change of gear.

"Hey, Leo," said Josh, as the others trooped in. "What are you doing here?"

"Ginger told me Toby got a call that Sam was trying to smash his own brains in. Thought I'd better come see if he'd succeeded." He looked curiously at the three strangers.

CJ quickly took charge. "This is Rupert Giles. He and his friend Wesley are, um, mythologists, and this is an old student of his, Buffy Summers." She shot a look at Sam. "We were having a very interesting conversation until Spanky here decided to practise his swan dives in a room full of sharp corners."

Sam shrank down in his bed, and wished he'd had the foresight to just pretend he was still asleep. This really wasn't turning out to be a good day, ego-wise.

"Okay." Leo frowned at Giles. "Have we met?"

"I, uh, took a group of young people to the White House a few weeks ago. That's how I met, uh-" He gestured vaguely towards the senior staff, pointing mostly at CJ.

"Ah. I see." Leo gave CJ an inquiring look that she pretended not to notice. "Well, I hope 'Spanky' here has apologised for ruining your evening."

Josh snickered, and Sam decided that now was a good time to check out the quality of the ceiling tiles. "Listen, I'm going back to the White House," Leo continued. "Sam, try not to headbutt any more furniture. I'll see you at senior staff tomorrow."

He left, and CJ grinned and snapped her fingers. "Hey, I just got an idea..."


	12. Jealous, Moi?

**12: Jealous, Moi?**

"I'm telling you, Donna, I don't like it."

"I know you're telling me, Josh. You've been telling me for quite some time."

"It's a terrible idea."

Donna stopped in the hallway and gave him a challenging look. "Tell me, Joshua, why you in your infinite wisdom consider this plan of CJ's to be a terrible idea."

That one flummoxed him. "It just... is."

"Wise words, Joshua. Well, I'm certainly persuaded."

Of course, she knew exactly why he thought it was a terrible idea. CJ had decided that if the worst came to the worst, they needed to be able to smuggle their Sunnydale allies into the hall - and what better way to bring them in than as their dates? CJ would take Giles, Sam would take Buffy, and Donna would take Wesley. Everybody agreed that it was the most sensible way to handle it.

Apart from Josh. And Donna didn't think it was the idea of Sam dancing with a girl twelve or fifteen years his junior that was bothering him, either.

_Aw, is little Joshie_ jealous?

It was pretty cute, actually, the way he was pouting about it. Not that she was going to tell him that.

"I just..."

"Don't like the idea of members of staff having dates?"

"Well, when you put it like that, it sounds silly."

"Imagine that."

"No, I just think-"

"Joshua Lyman, you are _sooo_ jealous."

"I am not!" he retorted so sharply that she knew the truth had stung. "Why would I be jealous?"

_Lie through teeth._ "'Cuz everyone else gets a date except you?"

"Toby doesn't have a date."

Bonnie, passing by in the corridor, stopped abruptly. "Okay, that's something that doesn't usually need to be stated."

"Josh is jealous," Donna informed her. "'Cuz everybody has a date for the ambassadorial reception except him."

Josh tossed his head. "Donna, I'd hardly consider you, Sam and CJ to be 'everybody'."

"Sam has a date?" demanded Bonnie curiously.

"That's not what I'm jealous about," Josh said hastily. "Especially since I am not, in fact, in any way shape or form jealous." They both smirked at him. "And anyway, she's not a real date."

"She's an unreal date?"

"Sam's only taking her because she's a friend of CJ's date."

"Okay, Josh, that doesn't, you know, cancel her out or anything," Bonnie informed him wryly. She turned to Donna. "You have a date? Way to go, you!"

Donna decided a little giggly excitement was in order. _Cover story. For the cover story. And nothing to do with pouty Josh._

"His name's - get this - Wesley Wyndham-Price, and he's _English_." She and Bonnie exchanged squeals, and Josh looked pained.

"He's a complete geek," he informed Bonnie knowingly.

"Sure he is, Josh," she agreed tolerantly, and smiled at Donna.

"He is!"

Donna rolled her eyes and grabbed her boss by the sleeve. "Come on, Josh. Don't you have a country to run or something?"

* * *

Josh wasn't the only one to be a little uncomfortable about the dating arrangements.

"I feel weird about this, Josh. I mean, people are gonna think I'm... I don't know."

"Will you just relax, Sam? You're taking the girl out for one evening, everybody knows it's because she's a friend of Giles's, and it's not as if you're gonna get up to anything." He gave Sam a searching look. "You're not getting up to anything, are you?"

"No!" His indignance quickly faded back into concern. "I know that, Josh. But I mean, I'm in my thirties, and she's-"

"Sam, did you miss the part where you're not actually dating her? Besides, it's not like she's _twelve_. I mean, she's only a few years younger than Donna, really."

Sam blinked at him. "What's Donna's age got to do with anything?"

Josh looked completely poleaxed. "Uh... nothing? Absolutely nothing at all? Except for maybe the fact that she's going with that Wesley guy who is kind of your age which I think might have been my point, in fact I'm sure it was. So, um, yeah. That was the point. That I was making." He scuttled hurriedly away, and Sam smirked after him.


	13. Daring Deeds and Dinner Dates

**13: Daring Deeds and Dinner Dates**

"Ready?"

Josh looked down at himself. "No," he admitted.

His appearance was a little mis-matched, fancy tux contrasted with the battered backpack slung over one shoulder. That he was used to. The contents of said bag, on the other hand, were definitely a little unusual.

It might not set off any metal detectors, but it would certainly raise a few eyebrows if he was stopped by security. One crossbow, with bolts. Five sharpened stakes. Three bottles of holy water. A whole bunch of pungent-smelling herbs and strange objects that would apparently allow Toby to cast spells.

"I'm not exactly the best man for the job, Toby," he pointed out.

"Of course you're not," Toby agreed without hesitation. "Unfortunately, you're the only man I've got, so shut up."

"We could bring Donna," suggested Josh hopefully. Toby gave him a look.

"We're not completely changing our carefully worked out - and might I add universally agreed - plans just because you're ridiculously possessive of your assistant."

"Okay, first, how is it universal if _I_ don't agree? Second, possessive? I am not possessive. I am a benevolent and thoughtful employer."

Toby snorted into his beard. "Josh, the only possible answer to both of those points is that you are woefully out of touch with anything approaching reality."

"So why are you bringing me at all?"

"Probability theory. If there are two of us, there's a fifty percent chance they'll attack you."

"I'd like to take this opportunity to thank you, Toby, for being so understanding and reassuring about my role in events tonight."

"Shut up and get in the car."

* * *

Sam paced back and forth uneasily in his tuxedo. Donna had to admit that, brotherly position he occupied in her life notwithstanding, he was certainly pretty easy on the eye in formalwear.

However, she couldn't help wish Josh was in his customary place beside them. He cleaned up surprisingly well for these sorts of functions, despite his semi-legendary ability to rumple clothes he'd only worn for five seconds. And then there was the fun of watching him wrestle uselessly with his bowtie, which inevitably ended with the two of them standing nose to nose as she tied it, practically close enough to-

It was probably a good thing that Sam rescued her from that dangerous line of thought.

"I'm still not happy about this," he confided, looking worried. "I mean, I don't want people to think I'm-"

"Sam." Donna thought it was sweet that Sam was so concerned with the propriety of the thing, but it could grate on the nerves after a while.

In a way that had absolutely nothing to do with thoughts about the appropriateness of dating a man ten or fifteen years older than you.

"Sam, everybody knows you're a gentleman. Nobody would ever accuse you of doing any more than being very sweet, and offering an opportunity to a nice young woman who wouldn't normally get to come to the White House. She gets to see the president, hobnob with ambassadors, do some dancing-"

Sam found a new fear to latch onto. "Dancing? You think there'll be dancing?"

"That's why we have a dance floor, Sam."

"But what about Tribby?"

"Well, if all goes well on Josh's end, he won't even be there. In which case, we can just have a perfectly ordinary ambassadorial reception. With dancing."

"I can't dance with Buffy!" Sam insisted, panicked. "What if I fall over?"

"She's the Slayer, Sam. I'm sure she'll be able to pick you up."

Sam resumed his nervous pacing. After a moment, he looked at his watch. "Where are they?"

"CJ's gone to bring them up, Sam, they'll be here any minute."

He paced a bit more, and then stopped abruptly. "Okay, even so, I'm still not- yah!" He practically swallowed his tongue as his date appeared in the doorway and smiled at them both.

After seeing the unfortunate young woman brought back from actually _beyond_ death's door, Donna found it impossible to bedgrudge her the way she positively lit up the room. She grinned brightly, for a moment not caught up in the grim business of slaying but just like any young woman about to enjoy a fantasy night out. "Hi, Donna." She turned towards her companion for the evening ahead, and her smile widened. "Hi, Sam."

"Hi." Sam blushed furiously, and Donna half wished Josh was there to see it and tease him about it.

Then the others arrived. Giles was looking extremely distinguished in a tux of his own, and CJ, with her arm linked through his, shot Donna a smug grin. Wesley, following behind, was looking pretty dapper himself. He extended a hand a little shyly to Donna.

"Ms. Moss?"

"Oh, please. Call me Donna." She accepted the proffered arm. Their 'dates' this evening might be nothing more than a contingency plan... but that didn't mean they couldn't have a little fun along the way.

They headed towards the reception.


	14. Etiquette Lessons

**14: Etiquette Lessons**

"So what, exactly, are we gonna do here again?"

"Stop Tribby getting to the reception."

"Yeah." Josh felt the beginnings of a sinking feeling. "I was hoping for a _little_ more detail there, Toby."

"That's because we're going to improvise. And when I say we, I mean me. You are going to do exactly what I tell you to."

"I'm the hired muscle?"

"Without the muscle part."

"Or the 'getting paid for it' part." Toby parked the car. "We're here," Josh observed unnecessarily.

"Remind me why the White House pays you anything at all?"

"They don't pay me very much."

"Get out of the car."

They both got out, and started towards the building. It was late for any staff less hard-working that those at the White House, but even so Josh couldn't help thinking it should be busier. "You're sure Tribby's going to be here?"

"I had Ginger call ahead to say there were a few last-minute concerns to discuss. He'll be here to meet us."

"Then where is everybody?"

"Probably at home. Not everybody makes their staff slave for them the way you do with Donna."

"Okay, that's the second time you've accused me of being an unreasonable boss. I'll have you know-" He cut off abruptly as they stepped inside the building and saw that all the lights were out. "Okay, why is-?"

His unfinished question was quickly answered as a number of bulky figures appeared and moved to encircle the two men. Bulky, vampire-faced figures.

Toby spoke quietly, not taking his eyes from the ring of grinning vampires. "It looks like Tribby's decided to palm us off on his aides after all."

* * *

"Good Lord." Giles pulled his glasses off and blinked as the six of them entered the room and flashbulbs went off. CJ smiled at him.

"Don't worry about it. It's just our friends in the press, killing time until the president arrives. I'd rather they come out of here with 'Press Secretary Arrives With Mysterious Englishman' than 'Agricultural Secretary Turns Into Snake, Eats Guests'."

"I think if that turns out to be the case, they'll, uh, they'll probably not be coming out of here with anything," Giles said dryly.

"True," CJ agreed. She brightened up. "Still, on the plus side, I could definitely get behind the press corps getting eaten by a giant snake."

"Indeed."

They joined the party.

* * *

Sam hovered a little awkwardly on the sidelines with Buffy. If this had been a real date, he would know what to do - actually, he'd been single for so long he wasn't sure that was entirely true, but still - but he wasn't too sure of the procedure for 'pretend date to disguise surveillance activities'. Josh might be the one with the hopeless poker face, but Sam was almost pathologically honest, and subterfuge of any kind didn't sit well with him.

It didn't help that his beautiful young companion was drawing the attention of quite a number of the men in the room. A few jealous glances didn't hurt his ego, but some of them gave Buffy the once-over in a deeply unpleasant way, and then smirked as if they expected him to be some kind of companion in their leering. Maybe he was just hyper-sensitive because of their current situation, but it made his flesh crawl.

One of them, a minor official Sam had never been fond of, made his way over to the two of them as they lurked. "My, this _is_ a pretty young lady," he said, in a tone that made Sam want to punch him. "Wherever did you dig her up?"

Buffy smiled politely, perhaps unsure whether this was somebody they were allowed to offend.

"Buffy's in town with some mutual friends, and it seemed a shame for her to miss the reception," Sam said stiffly.

"Quite, quite," agreed the man with an obnoxious smirk. "Buffy, is it? That's an... interesting name." And Sam could quite clearly hear 'sounds like a call-girl name' in his patronising tone. That being something else he was hyper-sensitive to. "Well... Buffy... it's been a pleasure meeting you," the man said smarmily, offering her his hand.

Buffy took it politely - and then crushed his hand so hard that Sam saw the blood rush out of it. "Likewise," she said, smiling innocently as the man made desperate faces trying not to cry out.

She finally released him, and linked her arm through Sam's. "Shall we go get something to eat?"

They left the man behind them, trying to massage some feeling back into his hand.


	15. Making Conversation

**15: Making Conversation**

Sam couldn't seem to stop being apologetic. "I'm really sorry about that, Buffy." She frowned at him.

"Who are you, the jerk patrol? Don't worry about it."

"No, but, uh, I feel like it's my fault. I do feel uncomfortable about this, I'm a lot older than you..."

"Yeah, and you look it, too." She smirked at him. "Relax, Sam, you're not stealing me from any cradles here. Seriously, I've been dead twice, I fight vampires and I save the world at least twice a year, so I'm thinking that's a big 'yay' in the life experience checkbox."

"Oh, well, um, that's kind of taken the sheen off my 'I write for the President' line."

"Oh, no, 'cause hey, speeches? Give me a vampire and a broken bit of wood, any day." She shrugged. "Just relax, okay? We're just at a party, and who's gonna be watching us when the giant snake appears and starts ripping people's heads off?"

"I think it might be an idea to, you know, head that off at the pass," he suggested out wryly. Buffy shrugged.

"Hey, whatever. Just trying to cheer you up."

* * *

Donna was feeling a little left out. Wesley was both witty and sweet, if a little jumpy, but she couldn't help feeling something was missing from the party. Possibly something that went by the name of Joshua Lyman. Making conversation with a polite and attentive Englishman was not the worst way she'd ever spent an evening, but somehow she found herself missing being snarked all the time.

_Figures. I've spent so long working for Josh I don't know how to deal with someone who's_ nice _to me._

Wesley was cute, in a slightly geeky way; he was smart, sarcastic and occasionally smug. In another life, she could definitely have gone for him.

The circumstances that made it too complicated in this one, of course, having absolutely nothing to do with-

_Oh, why do I even bother?_

And where _was_ Josh, anyway? How were they supposed to know if his and Toby's plan to delay Tribby was working? She supposed the fact that they didn't arrive was a good sign, but it made her decidedly edgy.

She nearly jumped a mile when Leo tapped her on the shoulder. "Where's Josh?" he asked. "Come to think of it, where's Toby? They should both be here."

"They went to speak to Roger Tribby," Donna non-explained. "There was a thing."

"A thing?"

"Uh-huh," she nodded.

"Okay." Leo shrugged, and then frowned. "They'd better be here soon, though, because-"

"Gerald!"

Leo winced at the hearty bellow from across the room. "Hide me. Now," he beseeched Donna.

"Sorry, Leo," she shrugged.

Lord Marbury came bounding over. "Gerald!" he beamed.

"Ambassador," Leo nodded, not bothering to correct him.

"And Donna!" smiled Marbury. He gave her an exaggerated bow, and she couldn't help grinning back. There was just something irrepressibly charming about the English lord. He bounded about like an overeager puppy, saying things that nobody else could ever have got away with and pulling it off in style.

He noticed Wesley. "Ah, and is this your date for the evening? Splendid!" He offered Wesley his hand. "Greetings, I am John, Lord Marbury, England's ambassador to the United States."

Wesley shook his hand, looking a little daunted. "Wesley Wyndham-Price, your lordship."

"Ah! A fellow countryman!" he exclaimed, delighted. "An oasis of civilisation in this sea of barbarism!"

"We're standing right here, John," observed Leo dryly.

Marbury patted Donna's shoulder. "Well, obviously I didn't mean you, my dear." He turned back to Wesley. "Another Englishman cast adrift in this world of disposable culture? How perfectly splendid. Tell me, are you related to the Hampshire Wyndham-Prices?"

Leo glanced sideways at Donna. "Think if I move really fast I can be across the room before he notices I'm gone?"

"Go for it," she advised.

"Tell your date I owe him one," Leo said, and scuttled away.

Donna stood listening to Wesley and Lord Marbury trade long strings of names that meant little to her, and wondered what was happening to Josh.


	16. Trivial Pursuits

**16: Trivial Pursuits**

The hulking vampires grinned down at them. Josh stared nervously back, and edged a little closer to Toby. "Told you we should've brought Donna," he muttered.

"This might be a good time to remind you that you're carrying the weapons," Toby said quietly.

"Yeah." He had the bag over his arm, but how was he supposed to get at the contents without having said arm ripped off?

The lead vampire smirked in anticipation. "Nice of the boss to send us an appetiser."

Josh figured it was now or never. He whipped the bag off his shoulder and open in the same motion, yanking out a bottle of holy water as Toby grabbed a stake. Thank God for all that practise, trying to quickly pull out his lunch before Donna could spot it and insist on sharing.

"Yeah? Well this appetiser's got teeth!" Not the most brilliant comeback ever, but he was pretty proud of himself for being able to talk at all, under the circumstances.

The vamp looked surprised for a moment, but it didn't last long. "So the puny humans want to dance? Okay. I could do with working up an appetite." His companions snickered, and then they moved in...

* * *

"And you work from the original Sumerian?"

"Ah, er, some of the uh, later texts are translated into Latin." Giles pushed his glasses up on his nose. "Alas, not always very well, so I prefer to, ah, translate it for myself where I can."

"Fascinating!" The president's eyes were lit up in a way they seldom were at these sorts of events. Wesley nudged Donna surreptiously.

"I didn't realise the president was a scholar of these matters." He sounded surprised.

"Oh, he's quite the geek," Donna nodded. It figured; a room full of people who wanted to schmooze or talk politics, and all the president wanted to do was discuss ancient Sumerian texts.

Returning with a drink, CJ rolled her eyes. "I see the president's stolen my date."

The First Lady followed her. "Oh dear, is my husband monopolising your nice Englishman?" she sighed.

"Well, it's hard to say who's monopolising whom, but they seem to be enjoying themselves, ma'am."

Abbey shook her head. "I'd better break this up before he decides to leave the party and run off to get his books." She stepped up to her husband, who absently slipped an arm around her.

"Hey there, babe."

"Jed, there are people at this party who came specifically to talk to you," she reminded him quietly.

"Yeah, but I don't want to talk to _them_," he grumbled.

"I'm sorry, Mr. President, I've been taking up your time," Giles apologised quickly.

"Not at all, not at all," he insisted jovially, as his wife dragged him away. "It's been very interesting talking to you!" He turned to the First Lady. "Abbey, do I have to?" he groaned.

"Deal with it, pumpkin." She led him off to join a group of chatting ambassadors.

Giles polished his glasses. "Your president is, uh, really quite the talker."

"Yeah. Sorry to abandon you like that," apologised CJ.

"No, not at all! He has some absolutely fascinating views on European mythology. It's quite a shame, really; he'd be invaluable in our line of work."

"Well, maybe you can recruit him. But, you know, _after_ he's finished being the president would be good."

"Yes, uh, I suppose he probably is a little busy."

"Just a touch," CJ agreed. Wesley and Giles went off to compare notes with Buffy, and CJ looked at Donna. "Ye gods, what have we started?"

"Witty, good-looking, _and_ he can hold his own in a trivia match with the president," Donna observed. "You go, girl!"

"I'm going, I'm going!" she agreed. She grinned at Donna. "So how's Wesley?"

"Oh, he's nice."

CJ narrowed her eyes at her. "Nice? What does that mean?"

She purposefully played dense. "Means he's not nasty?"

_But he ain't no Joshua Lyman, either._

Where _was_ Josh?


	17. Unpleasant Surprises

**17: Unpleasant Surprises**

Josh yelped and lashed out blindly as one of the vampires got too close for comfort. He made contact, but only by accident, and he suspected it was more painful for his hand than the creature.

Toby grunted beside him, and there was the solid thud of a stake hitting home. Suddenly he was covered in dust.

"Hey, he killed Kevin!" exclaimed one of the vamps. Josh fought the urge to giggle insanely at the incongruity of a vampire called Kevin. He was caught by surprise as one of the creatures grabbed him from behind, and suddenly there was a sharp pain in the side of his neck.

Instinct brought his backpack up to whack at it. There was a crunch of glass, and suddenly the vampire was howling and reeling backwards. Josh gagged at the hiss like frying bacon and the smell of scorched flesh that accompanied it.

The remaining vampires scrambled away, suddenly worried. "Man, they're packing, like, acid or something!" exclaimed their leader. He sounded vaguely indignant, as if he considered that to be cheating.

"It's holy water, idiot," growled Toby, snatching up one of the undamaged bottles. He seemed more annoyed by the vampires' lack of education than anything else.

The vampires drew back and eyed them warily. Josh fumbled for the crossbow in his bag, and managed to get it pointing the right way. Toby took a step towards him, still holding up the water bottle as if it was a grenade. "Back away," he advised softly. "No sudden movements."

They both backed slowly towards the exit, not taking their eyes of the glowering vamps. Toby kicked the door open behind them, and looked across at Josh. "Josh?"

"Yeah?"

"Run."

They sprinted for the car.

* * *

"So, there I was, just woken up in my office, and I discovered I was..." Sam hesitated, on the edge of a blush.

"Suffering from a slight case of nudity?" Buffy supplied with a grin. "I hear you. Happened to me once when I got turned into a rat."

"You got turned into a rat?"

"Yeah. Long story." She frowned. "Well, not. Basically, what happened was, somebody turned me into a rat."

"Okay." Sam was learning to shrug that kind of thing off. "So anyway, there I was. Half dressed, wondering what the hell had just happened to me... Josh came in, and explained the whole werewolf thing, and then he wanted to take a look at the bite." He grimaced. "At which point Cathy and Ginger walked in."

"On you and Josh?" The corners of Buffy's mouth started to turn up in a smirk.

"Yeah." Sam shuddered. "It was a whole semi-nakedness, close proximity, early hour of the morning thing, which, uh... didn't go down so well." Or entirely _too_ well, depending on your point of view.

Buffy giggled, apologised, and giggled again. "Sorry. But that's... that's kind of funny."

"Yeah," he agreed wryly. "Everybody _else_ in the whole universe certainly thought so."

Buffy grinned and patted his shoulder. "Hey, look on the bright side," she advised.

"What bright side would that be, exactly?"

"Well, hey. Josh is really quite cute, you know." He gave her a look, and she bust up laughing again. "Sorry. I shouldn't laugh, it's not like I've never done the whole weird excuses shtick. It's just, you guys... that's so cute!"

"Thanks." But her smile was infectious, and he couldn't help grinning back. It _was_ funny, he supposed. In a 'situations involving absolutely no eye-contact with anyone even peripherally involved' way.

"Thank you," said Buffy, getting her giggles under control. "I needed this," she said sincerely. "Coming back from the dead, it's been... it's been weird."

"Well, you'd think."

"Yeah, yeah, I know. But it's all been so... I don't know. Big party, pretty dress, lots of laughs and no stress - this is exactly what I needed."

"Well, don't speak too soon," Sam warned her, as he caught a glimpse across the dance floor. "Roger Tribby's just walked in the room."


	18. Minor Complications

**18: Minor Complications**

Josh rubbed disconsolately at the band-aids on the side of his neck. It felt somehow... anticlimatic... to patch up a vampire bite as easy as if he'd cut himself shaving. "He bit me, Toby!" he exclaimed.

"You'll live," Toby muttered unsympathetically.

"I know. Forever! That's what I'm worried about!"

"You can't become undead from a tiny bite wound like that, Josh. You have to be sired."

"Sired?"

"Did you drink any vampire blood this evening?"

Josh blinked. "Um, not so far as I know?"

"Well then."

"Although, come to think of it, that thick sticky liquid in the machine that purported to be coffee..."

"Please stop talking now." They drove on through the night.

* * *

"Where the hell have you two been?" Leo glowered at them.

"We had to talk with Tribby," Josh covered quickly.

"He's already here!"

He and Toby exchanged glances. So much for their 'diversion'. "We got... delayed."

"Yeah, well-" Leo became distracted by a glimpse of Lord Marbury through the crowd. "Oh, Lord. Marbury." Josh snickered, but Leo put it down with a look.

"Go," he ordered. "Mingle. And don't start any trouble!" He quickly slipped away to escape the boisterous English diplomat.

Josh looked at Toby. "Well, he said 'don't start any trouble'. But I feel that 'stop the giant snake from killing everybody' was, you know, implied."

Toby ignored him, scanning the crowd. "This is not going well," he grumbled into his beard.

Josh gave him a look. "You think? Tribby's at the reception, I've been bitten by a vampire, and-" The crowd momentarily parted, and he caught a sudden snapshot of Donnatella Moss, head back in an instant of unguarded laughter. "-Donna's flirting with that Wesley guy!" he finished indignantly. He marched forward determinedly, only to be collared by Toby.

"Believe it or not, Josh, there are few things in this world that I care about less deeply right now," he said, rolling his eyes heavenwards. "We need to find Tribby."

"Hey guys." Buffy came up behind them, Sam at her side.

"He's here," said Sam without preamble. Toby nodded.

"We know. How long 'til the speech?"

"A half hour?" Sam shook his head. "We're gonna do something, we better do it now."

"We couldn't just, I don't know, call him in to the Secret Service as a threat?" Josh demanded. Agricultural Secretary or not, they'd take it seriously. They always did.

"They'd trace the call, Josh," Toby pointed out. "Plus, whilst the Service are trained to deal with any number of eventualities, it's not outside the realms of possibility that their detainee's sudden transformation into a snake might throw them a little."

"So much for 'all eventualities'," Josh grumbled. But not too loudly. You didn't bitch about the people who were willing to take bullets for you. If anyone should understand the depth of that commitment, it was him.

Giles extricated himself from whatever conversation he and CJ had been caught up in, and came over to join them. "The portal?" he asked quietly, and Toby nodded grimly.

"It's all we've got."

"Portal?" Josh frowned.

"We're going to, uh, send the Mayor - the Agricultural Secretary - to another, um, plane of existence. We can't hope to defeat him in battle, not without people getting hurt."

"So you make a portal, shove him through, and poof! No more Tribby? Great." He frowned again. "Remind me, why wasn't this plan A?" It rather appeared he'd got the matched set of puncture holes on his neck for no reason at all.

Giles removed his glasses and looked graved. "Spells that establish a link between dimensions are famously, uh... tenuous... especially when performed under less than ideal conditions."

"Like, say, if you had twenty-seven minutes to do it in?" suggested Sam dryly.

"So what could happen if it doesn't work?" asked Josh.

"Well, the, uh, connection could drift and we could end up sending him somewhere... unexpected," Giles explained.

"Like the world without shrimp," Buffy supplied helpfully.

"I think I could live with that," Josh shrugged. "What else?"

Toby took up the explanation. "Well, it could all go disastrously wrong and either cause an explosion, suck our dimension into hell, or destroy the fabric of the known universe."

"Well, okay," Josh conceded. "I could see how that might be a bit of a problem."


	19. Out of Time

**19: Out of Time**

"We need to do this outside," Toby explained.

"You don't think the Secret Service are gonna notice if we open a great big glowing portal thingie?" Josh demanded.

"Do portals glow?" asked Sam curiously. "I mean, as a rule?"

Buffy nodded. "Generally, yeah. Big, swirly, glowy things, hanging in the air." She frowned. "I've got kind of a bad history with portals. This one better work."

"I think we can, um, make the portal invisible," Giles said. "Of course, that, uh, that carries its own dangers."

"Yeah. I don't think we want anybody accidentally falling in," Sam agreed.

"Yeah." Josh shuddered. "I don't think I'd miss the shrimp, but I could live without being trapped with an angry giant snake."

Sam looked worried. "Are we going to, I don't know, drop the giant snake on the parallel universe White House? Because I don't think parallel universe me would appreciate that very much."

Giles shook his head. "We're not splitting planes of reality, just dimensions. We'll try to open a link to one of the hell dimensions; the Mayor - Tribby - should be quite, uh, at home among the other demons."

"Okay, now I _definitely_ don't want to fall in there," said Josh. "What now?"

"We'll start prepping the ritual," said Toby. "Somebody needs to get Wesley-"

"I'll do that!" Josh volunteered quickly, and dashed towards where he'd last seen Wesley and Donna.

* * *

"And the thing about kybarusi demons, you see, is that-"

"Time to go." Josh somewhat rudely thrust between Wesley and Donna and gave them a sharp look.

"Josh!" Donna couldn't quite hide the stab of relief at seeing him back in one piece. Then she frowned. "What happened to your neck?"

"Vampire bite," he answered shortly. He frowned at the pair of them. "In case you were too busy flirting to notice, Tribby's in the room."

Wesley jumped. "I wasn't-" He turned to Donna. "Miss Moss, I assure you, I wasn't trying to-"

"It's okay," she reassured him, giving Josh the evil eye. "Ignore my boss, he just has an assortment of random objects jammed up his ass."

"Hey!"

"Behave, Josh," she ordered him. How did he manage to be simultaneously cute and annoying when he was jealous?

_Self-defence mechanism, Donna. Otherwise he would have been kicked out of the nearest window at an very early age._

"We don't have time for this," he said shortly, and turned on his heel.

"Sorry," said Wesley quietly, as they followed him out of the hall.

"Why are you apologising to me?" she asked.

He stuttered. "I, I, I hope I didn't give the wrong impression to your, um, your-"

"Boss?"

"Boss," he accepted with a nod, but the look her gave her said he knew different.

_Dammit, dammit, dammit. When did we become an open book?_ Even on their short acquaintance Wesley was reading the undercurrents between her and Josh, and nice though he was Donna didn't think he was quite the most clued up of individuals.

She wasn't sure how the ins and outs of their complicated relationship had suddenly become obvious, but she was willing to bet it was all Josh's fault.

* * *

They assembled outside the building, temporarily sheltered from the eyes of the Secret Service. They were going to have a very limited window to cast this spell, and a _lot_ of explaining to do if anybody caught them in the act.

Toby took charge as he and the other Watchers scrambled to prepare the portal-opening spell. "We have to assume the vampires Tribby left for us aren't the only ones he has at his command."

"You think they can get into the White House?" frowned Josh.

"We might have security," Toby reminded him, "but they're looking for human beings. Vampires can move silently and _fast_."

"We'll take care of them," shrugged Buffy confidently, glancing at Donna. Donna smiled a little uneasily back. For all that Buffy was a good few years her junior, she was very glad she'd have her along.

Josh also looked concerned. "I should go with you."

She rolled her eyes at him, but fondly. "I think one vampire bite a day is enough for you, Josh."

"You need need to be on the inside, Josh," Toby interrupted before he could protest further. "Sam, CJ, you too. We need you to wait until the last minute, and then get Tribby out here without Leo or the president seeing you do it."

The operative question was of course 'how?', but none of them asked it. They were running out of time, and now their only chance was in doing, not thinking.


	20. Buddy Bonding, Slayer Style

**20: Buddy Bonding, Slayer Style**

Donna clutched the stake uneasily. She would rather have had a crossbow, but wandering the White House grounds with a pointed stick was going to be hard enough to explain if she was spotted, let alone an actual weapon. 

Buffy seemed quite at home patrolling the darkness, although she hiked up her dress with a curse. "We're not exactly dressed for this, are we?" Donna observed. 

Buffy shrugged. "I'm kinda used to it by now. I mean, there was the whole Ascension thing at my Graduation, the Master decided to kill me at the Spring Fling... and don't even get me started on birthdays." She scowled. "Then, of course, there was the prom. I didn't mind the whole hellhound thing so much, but breaking up with my boyfriend the day before definitely sucked." 

"Your boyfriend broke up with you right before the prom?" Donna winced. Getting a vampire-slaying destiny dumped on you was one thing, but that was just nasty 

"Yeah." Buffy sighed. "Of course, it was never gonna work and we both knew it, but, you know, it would have killed him to wait 'til the day after?" 

"He wasn't the guy?" Donna sympathised. 

"Oh, no, he was totally the guy all right. It was just... complicated." She kicked at the ground with her fancy shoes. "He was older, for a start." 

"Yeah?" Donna's thoughts skipped briefly back to the painful subject of Dr. Freeride. And then she thought about how since Josh had coined that nickname, she'd never thought of her ex-boyfriend by name ever again. _Face it, girl, you fell a little bit in love with Joshua Lyman right there and then._

"Yeah," nodded Buffy. "Actually, he was two-hundred and fifty." 

"Ah." Maybe there _were_ more complicated relationships in the world than hers and Josh's. 

"He was a vampire," Buffy elaborated. 

"Not Spike?" Donna asked, remembering the bleached blond vamp and his strange devotion to the young Slayer. 

Buffy gave a snort of startled laughter. "Spike? Um, _no_." She frowned a little. "Spike is... Spike. I have no idea _what_'s going on with him, so let's just leave that alone. No, this was another guy. He was a vampire, but he had a soul; his name was Angel." 

"Ah." Donna remembered that name; Willow had mentioned it in conjunction with the spell that had brought Buffy back, and both Spike and Xander had tensed up in disgust. "And he might have been the one?" 

"Yup. Except for this whole calamity, end of the world, serious doom if we ever actually got together deal." 

"I hear you." Donna nodded emphatically. Yeah, she knew about that all right. Dammit. "So what happened?" 

"Briefly?" Buffy shot her a wryly amused look. "We met, fell in love, spent the night together, he lost his soul and went on a murder rampage, he tried to end the world, Willow gave him his soul back, I stabbed him and sent him to hell to save the world, he came back, we had a whole doomed love thing going again, and then we broke up. And now he works in LA as a private investigator." 

"Wow." 

"Yeah." Buffy shook her head. "We don't talk much anymore. I mean, I had to call him up after... you know... and say 'hey, so I'm not dead anymore', but apart from that..." She shrugged. "What would I say? 'Hi, remember me? We had the love of a lifetime and then I turned you evil, why don't we have brunch sometime?'" She sighed. 

"Love sucks," said Donna despondently. She doubted Josh was in any danger of losing his soul, but his job was a different matter. 

"Yeah. I'm giving up on love for the moment." Buffy suddenly grinned, making her look as young as she truly was. "But your friend Sam sure is pretty to look at in the meantime." 

"He is, isn't he?" They shared a giggle. 

"But seriously, though." Buffy gave Donna a look. "What's with you and Josh?" 

"Nothing. He's my boss." 

"Your boss with cute dimples who totally likes you." 

"Maybe," she admitted, blushing a little. 

Suddenly a vampire came rushing out of the darkness, animal face contorted in a murderous scowl. Buffy slammed a stake through its chest without even looking. "Do you mind? Talking." 

She turned back to Donna. "So, c'mon. What's the scoop on Josh? Tell me everything." 

They wandered on through the night. 


	21. We Have Achieved Portality

**21: We Have Achieved Portality**

Josh touched Sam lightly on the shoulder. "It's time."

"Are we ready?"

"I doubt it."

"'Kay."

"CJ's got 'em distracted?"

"Yep."

"Then let's go grab Tribby."

They advanced on the Agriculture Secretary, political faces in place. Josh might be decidedly bad at the kind of poker face Leo was famous for, but he was the one true master of the deceptively befuddled 'I'm not sure what planet I'm on, let alone which meeting this is' face. And Sam... well, nobody could look innocent quite like Sam.

"Mr. Secretary? I don't suppose we could have a private word?"

Tribby smiled benevolently at them. "Well, gee, not that I wouldn't love to chat with you boys, but I'm speaking in a couple of minutes-"

"Oh, this won't take that long," Sam assured him.

"Matter of seconds," Josh agreed. "If you'd just like to step outside with us for a moment...?"

* * *

Donna and Buffy swung back around to join the three Watchers at their preparations. "Vamp disposal, check," Buffy informed them brightly.

"And, more surprisingly, no Secret Service following us," Donna added. The whole night had a decidedly surreal flavour; hunting vampires in a party dress while they did the whole girltalk thing. She didn't think that she would ever learn to become as blasé about patrolling as Buffy was - but then, once she'd felt that way about working in the White House.

_I guess anything becomes ordinary if you see it often enough._

One thing she would probably never become accustomed to was the sight of Toby Ziegler kneeling on the ground in his tux, making magical symbols with a vial of black dust. He finished what he was doing and stood up, dusting off his knees with a scowl. They all looked at Wesley, who was quietly muttering the words of a spell as he read from a thick brown tome. He finished and looked up, shutting the book with a dull thump.

They all looked at each other. "Is it, um, done?" asked Donna hesitantly.

Giles shrugged and nodded, and Buffy regarded the empty air before them sharply. "Viva le anticlimax," she observed.

"Well, do we have a portal?" asked Toby impatiently. Giles picked up a small stone and lightly tossed it forward. Somewhere in the darkness of the air, it disappeared.

"Big check in the portal column," Buffy said. "Houston, we have achieved portality."

"But the question is, a portal to where?" Wesley worried.

"You're welcome to step through and find out," Giles suggested with a dangerous smile. Donna was struck by the change wrought in him by the upcoming confrontation. Gone was the stutteringly gentle-hearted scholar, nervous mannerisms replaced with a kind of powerfully edgy tension.

"I think perhaps I'll pass on that," said Wesley dryly. His eyes flickered back towards the building. "Are they coming?"

Donna glanced at her watch. Josh had been told when to get Tribby - adjusting for the known suckiness of his watch, of course - and he and Sam would be leading him out of the building by now. "They're on their way."

Giles straightened up. "Then let's be ready for them when they get here."

* * *

Tribby frowned at the pair of them as they led him out to the prearranged point. "My, this is conspiratorial," he observed jovially. "It's all very exciting, but I really don't have long before-"

"It's okay, Mr. Secretary, we're right here," Josh told him, as he glimpsed Giles's tall figure in the dimness ahead.

Tribby looked puzzled, taking a few confused steps forward. "Mr. Lyman, Mr. Seaborn, I'm really not sure what you're trying to-"

All of a sudden, Buffy stepped out of the dark before them. She stood with her head tilted to one side, smirking slightly. "Mayor Wilkins - fancy meeting you here. Remember me?"

"Ms. Summers - so we meet again." His voice was dark and steely - and then, suddenly, he started to laugh. "I've always wanted to say that," he told Josh gleefully. Turning back to Buffy, he slipped his hands into his pockets. "My, this is a surprise. Still, it's lovely of you to come for the big event. It's a wonderful opportunity to deal with all that nasty unfinished business from last time."

His smile was as blandly avuncular as ever - but there were knives behind his eyes.


	22. Small Talk

**22: Small Talk**

"Mr. Mayor." Giles stepped up out of the darkness and smiled coldly. 

"Ah, Mr. Giles." Tribby smiled pleasantly. "I do hope we're not going to have a repeat of that business with the fencing foil." He smoothed out his tux. "These things aren't cheap to hire, you know." 

"You've moved up in the world, I see," Giles observed. Tribby shrugged easily. 

"All good organisers remember to have a backup plan. Diligence is the mother of good luck." 

"Welcome to the fortune-cookie factory," Buffy observed acerbically. 

Donna couldn't help a flicker of a nervous grin. Like her friends and colleagues in the West Wing, Buffy and her friends were always ready to quip under pressure. Maybe it was a saving the world thing. 

"Well, honestly, it's really quite delightful that you've all come to see me off, if a little misguided on your part. Still, I'm sure some of us will have fun." Tribby squinted into the dark and rubbed his hands together. "So, come on, don't keep me in suspense. Who else have you got back there?" 

Wesley and Toby stepped up to join Giles. 

"Ah, Mr. Ziegler! Sorry I had to miss our meeting earlier today - terribly rude of me." He looked at Wesley. "And Mr. Giles's associate from back in Sunnydale. I'm sorry, you'll have to forgive me, but I don't believe we were ever properly introduced." 

"Wesley. Wyndham-Price," he said grimly. 

"Of course, of course. Another Englishman. How very multicultural." He beamed around at them all. "Now, why don't we get to business? We don't want to keep the ladies and gentlemen in the White House waiting, so I suppose I'm just going to have to... well, kill you." He shrugged. "Ah well, these things are an inevitable consequence of political ambition, I suppose." 

"We defeated you once - we can do it again," Giles reminded him. 

"My, aren't we melodramatic?" Tribby smiled. "Now, as I recall, you weren't playing entirely fair last time, were you? All that nasty dynamite hidden about the place - most unsporting. Plus, you had me all het up about personal developments." He sighed and shook his head. "But why should I blame you? I really shouldn't allow myself to be distracted. Trying times, trying times, but we must rise above these things if we're going to aim for a higher glory." 

Buffy clicked her fingers in feigned recollection. "Oh, that's right! Darling Faith. She didn't get to witness your moment of glory, did she? Maybe it's just as well, it would have ached her poor little heart to see her sugar-daddy go up in flames." 

Tribby frowned. "Now, now, young lady, there's no call for that kind of insinuation, thank you very much. I'm a man of family values. Tell me, how is little Faith? Did she get my awakening present?" 

"Oh yes." Buffy narrowed her eyes. "A nifty little gadget - shame she couldn't figure out what to do with it. Didn't take long to kick her back into her own body and out of town with her tail between her legs." 

_Back into her own body?_ Donna wondered. This was all going too fast to follow, and Tribby's cheerful exterior had her completely off-balance. He didn't sound like an evil dictator bent on ascending to demonhood, he sounded like President Bartlet when he'd taken a few too many back pills. 

"Goodness gracious, my poor little Faith out on her own in the world?" Tribby tutted. "Dear me, the evils that can befall a young lady, I dread to think... tell me, is she doing all right for herself?" 

"Oh, she did fine," said Wesley darkly, and Donna saw from the grim look on his face that there was some kind of history there. 

"Yeah, she's really enjoying the inside of her jail cell," Buffy added with a smirk. 

"Prison?" Tribby looked scandalised. "Oh my, we can't have that! Goodness knows what the jail system will do to my poor little girl." 

"Yeah, she's a real delicate flower," snorted Buffy. 

Tribby took a step backwards. "Well, really, it has been fascinating catching up with you all, but before I make the time to kill you, I really do have a speech to deliver. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to-" 

He broke off and looked vaguely alarmed as his whole frame began to shudder. "It's the Ascension!" called Toby. "It's happening now!" 

Well, that had always been the plan - but as the Agricultural Secretary's form began to melt into something scaly and huge, Donna couldn't help wondering if maybe they could have used a better one... 


	23. Deconstructive Criticism

**23: Deconstructive Criticism**

Donna stood transfixed as the Agricultural Secretary shuddered and shook, transforming before their eyes. She'd seen vampires shift faces before, but this was something else. That was just alien; this felt like it was against all the laws of the universe she'd ever known. 

_Hey, wait a minute, you can't_ do _that-_

Josh let out a startled cry and scrambled backwards, Sam beside him, as sinuous coils exploded everywhere at once. The enormous snake reared up and regarded them through dangerously intelligent eyes. 

Everyone was frozen - except Buffy, who calmly sauntered forward. "Hey, you did it again! Kinda smaller this time, though. Running low on the instant snake mix?" 

The snake-demon made a noise that was more a snarl than a serpentine hiss. Buffy looked mock-concerned. "Ooh, nasty - indigestion? You shouldn't have eaten Snyder last time round, he never agreed with anybody." She walked fearlessly towards the giant snake and stood looking up at it. "Hey, you're not so big. Reckon I could kick your ass." She stopped to contemplate. "If, you know, you have one, which I'm willing to admit might not be the case. But hey, no need to worry, I'm sure I can find something else to kick." 

The serpent tail whipped out lightning fast, and Buffy jumped backwards. The others all scurried further out of reach, but they needn't have worried - the newly-made demon had eyes for nobody but the young Slayer. 

Buffy grinned devilishly as she sauntered backwards. "Little bit testy, there? Something you ate? Or something eating you? I guess you're still kinda sore about what happened last time. Well, no dynamite this time around, but hey, you didn't get to make your speech, so in terms of pain and devastation I guess we'll call it even." 

The snake lunged again, with terrifying speed, but Buffy evaded it, still walking backwards and still talking. "I gotta say, I'm pretty relieved about that. I mean, the one you started giving at graduation was bad enough. Your motivational speaking skills, on a scale of one to ten? Suck. Hell, I was starting to snooze in the back there, and I _knew_ you were gonna turn into a demon halfway through." 

Enraged, the snake demon surged after her. She started to run, leading it in a twisting, circling path and leaping the coils that lashed her way. As she moved, she continued to fling taunts over her shoulder. 

"Hey, I've heard some pretty boring speeches in my time. Hell, I went to university - I had lectures! But there ain't nothing to compare to your graduation day spiel, my snaky friend. I gotta thank you for that, actually - it sure is a good cure for my post-slayage insomnia." She grinned, and suddenly stopped running. "I figure we've already won here. You eat us all, we've still been spared the horror of listening to you go on for an hour or four. Everybody wins! So what if we forgot the dynamite?" 

The snake demon shot towards the suddenly stationary target. Buffy held her ground - and then, at the last minute, threw herself aside. The giant snake vanished from view as it was flung at speed through the invisible portal. Buffy clicked her fingers in feigned remembrance. "Oh yeah. We did bring one of those, though. Did I forget to mention that?" 

"Now!" Toby, Wesley and Giles began chanting in unison, and Giles flung out a hand in an emphatic gesture. Buffy stepped forward and waved her hand through the air where the portal had once been. 

"All gone." She dusted herself off, and the others exchanged shaky glances. 

Josh looked across at Donna, wide-eyed. "Did we just win?" 

"Don't jinx it," she advised. 

Giles and Toby quickly kicked away the traces of the sigils that had formed the portal spell, and came over to join the rest of them. Sam was looking at Buffy warily. "Hey, I know you wanted to make him mad, but that? Was _seriously_ nasty." 

Buffy grinned, and patted him on the shoulder. "Hey, hit 'em where it hurts." She shrugged. "You wanna speak in public, you gotta learn to take a bit of deconstructive criticism." 

"We'd better get back in before we're missed," Josh remembered, turning back towards the building. 

"Little bit late for that." Leo stepped out of the shadows and frowned at them all. "Okay, again I find my senior staff disappearing in the middle of important government business. What the hell is going on here?" 


	24. A New Definition of Rambling

**24: A New Definition of Rambling**

They all stared at Leo for a moment, then Toby snorted. "Important government business? Leo, it's a booze-and-schmooze." 

Leo scowled. "It's important if I _say_ it's important. You think the press corps aren't gonna notice three-quarters of the senior staff gone missing? They're gonna know there's something going on." 

"Yeah, but there, um, actually isn't," Josh pointed out. 

"Exactly. Which means they'll get inventive, and I'm gonna open up my paper tomorrow and find we're plotting a bombing run on Switzerland!" 

"Well, someone's gotta get revenge for the cuckoo clocks." Leo gave Josh an unamused look. 

"Guys, what's everybody doing out here?" he asked, exasperated. 

"We followed Tribby," Sam volunteered. 

"Roger Tribby?" 

"Yeah," Josh nodded. "He took off suddenly in the middle of a conversation." 

"Took off?" demanded Leo loudly. 

"Yeah. Something came up - personal stuff, I guess. I don't think he was expecting it." All things considered, Josh did a fairly admirable job of keeping a straight face. 

"Not expecting it? I'll say! He's supposed to be giving a speech in-" Leo checked his watch "-_now_." 

"Well, that would be why we followed him," Sam pointed out. 

"And he just ran off?" 

"Pretty much." 

Leo rolled his eyes. "Boy, this evening just gets better and better." His gaze fell on Giles and the others, standing silent on the sidelines. "Geez, did _everybody_ come along for the ride?" 

"Um, no, we were just, um-" Giles flailed for an excuse. 

"Following me," finished Buffy quickly. She gave Leo her most winning smile. "I was looking for Donna. I needed her help with a major... dress... fashion... crisis... thing." She quickly turned to her fellow Slayer. "It looks okay now, right?" she said, indicating her outfit. 

Donna quickly chimed in on the cover story. "It doesn't show at all." She nudged Josh. "It doesn't, does it?" 

Josh was the perfect choice for playing vaguely clueless. "I don't even know what I'm looking for." 

"See?" she said, and Buffy grinned. 

Leo watched all this as if not quite sure what planet they were all from. "Whatever." He turned back to the senior staff. "Is it too much to ask that we take this back inside?" 

"Sure." Everybody trooped back in, with a few last backwards glances to make sure there weren't, say, any magical portals spontaneously reopening. There was a reassuring lack of giant snake demon, and they went inside. 

Sam turned to Leo. "What about the speech?" 

"Well, Tribby doesn't look like he's coming back," he observed caustically. "We'll have to let the president take the floor." There was a chorus of groans. 

"Leo!" 

"You're letting him loose on a bunch of potential supporters without a script?" Toby demanded. 

"Well, unless you want to write him one in the next ten minutes-?" Leo pointed out. Toby rolled his eyes heavenwards. 

"I quit." 

"Too late, you're here for life. Now _behave yourselves_," Leo ordered the three men sternly, as he ducked off into the crowd to find the president. CJ came over to join them. 

"Sorry, guys, he slipped away while the president was lecturing me on eucalyptus trees," she apologised. "Did you get Tribby?" 

"Yes, the, uh, the portal spell worked exactly as we, as we desired." She and Giles exchanged smiles. 

Toby looked pained. "And now we have to have the president speaking in his place. Without a prepared script." 

CJ smirked. "Well, I just hope the audience is ready for the Josiah Bartlet treatise on the properties of Australasian foliage. Let me tell you, that one's a real blockbuster." 

"I'll bet," nodded Josh. 

Wesley looked faintly surprised. "I must say, you're all very... cavalier... talking about your country's leader." 

"We mock because we love," CJ smiled. 

"We mock because we've learned to fear the application of random trivia," Josh added. Donna elbowed him. "Ow." 

Toby made a beeline for the remainder of the food. "Hey, where do you think you're escaping to?" CJ demanded. 

He turned back. "I have fought vampires. I have taken part in a spell to distort the fabric of reality. I have seen off an oversized snake demon. I am about to hear the President of the United States for whom I craft speeches give a large number of party supporters a new definition of 'rambling'." He paused infinitesimally, and raised a finger to make his point. "I need pie." He walked off. 

Somebody called for silence, and the president got up to speak. "Good evening, good evening. Ladies, gentlemen, I've just been informed that the Agricultural Secretary has been unavoidably detained, and will not be able to give his speech." The crowd didn't sound exactly devastated by the news. "So, looks like you're stuck with me." There was a ripple of polite laughter. "I'm sure I'll be able to rise to the occasion, and I'll try not to go on too long..." 

Under the cover of more laughter, Josh turned to glare at Giles and Wesley. "We could've gone with the giant snake ripping people's heads off, but nooo..." 


	25. Oh, How They Danced

**25: Oh, How They Danced**

The president finally yielded the floor, pleading an overwhelming desire to dance with the First Lady. He made good on his word, too, and everybody watched as the First Couple made the dance floor their own, with the kind of absolute focus on each other that made their devotion plain to see.

As more couples took to the floor, Buffy watched the president and his wife with a slightly sad smile. "Okay, his kind of saving the world's probably even less fun than mine," she admitted. "But I sure wouldn't mind all the dancing..."

Sam hesitated, and then nervously cleared his throat. "Um, would you... like to...?" He gestured vaguely towards the floor.

"Sure!" The not-so-remote possibility of completely embarrasing himself was worth it for the beam that lit up the Slayer's face. She didn't get to have that much glamour in her demon-fighting life, so why not make this a night to remember for something other than the giant snake?

In the interest of full disclosure, though, he felt obliged to admit his lack of recent experience as they took the floor. "Um... I should tell you I'm kinda of out of practice at this."

Buffy looked at him skeptically. "Oh come on, you're telling me you can't get dates?"

"Well, yeah. Just, um, the wrong ones."

"That bad, huh?" she sympathised.

Sam winced. "Well, the last one turned me into a werewolf. The one before that was my boss's daughter, and the one before _that_ turned out to be a call-girl."

Buffy nodded sagely. "I hear you. I got a commando with a bite fetish, a serial-dating college jerk, and a two-hundred and fifty-year-old-vampire who turns evil and tortures people to death if he ever achieves perfect happiness."

Sam hesitated for a beat. "Okay. You win."

They danced for a moment, and then Buffy smirked and sighed. "We should, like, start our own club. The Very Attractive People With Abysmal Love Lives club."

"VAPWALL?"

Buffy looked up at him. "You're quite a nerd, do you know that?" She grinned. "In a kinda cute way."

Sam grinned back.

* * *

Josh smirked at the sight of the two of them. "Aren't they cute?" he observed to CJ. She didn't answer. "CJ?" He turned.

"Go away."

She and Giles continued dancing, not taking their eyes off each other.

Josh left them to it as he spotted Donna standing alone and watching the dancers. He made his way across the room to her. "CJ and her guy are looking cosy," he observed quietly.

"I know." She nodded across at Sam and Buffy. "And look at that. Is that not the sweetest thing you ever saw in your life?" She watched them for a moment, and smiled. "Do you think there's ever such a thing as _too much_ pretty?"

Josh looked her right in the eye. "Never," he said sincerely.

The warmth of the look lingered for a little bit too long, and he cleared his throat. "So, um, where's your date?"

Donna nodded her head to where Wesley was engrossed in a conversation with Margaret.

"They look like they've really hit it off," Josh observed. "What are they talking about?"

Donna smirked. "When I left them? Comparative filing systems."

Josh laughed, and took her by the arm. And when he did, it seemed only natural that they ended up gravitating towards the dance floor.

"Well, this is... different," Josh observed, as they moved closer together.

"From fighting giant snakes?"

"Um... yeah."

"So I should think."

"You've obviously never seen me dance before, then," he mumbled close to her ear. "The thrashing, the injuries to passers-by, the screams of terror..."

"Josh?"

"Donna?"

"Shut up and dance."

"Okay."

They danced.

**The End**


End file.
